Though a nine hour debate with your closest friends about Kirk vs Picard can be extremely exciting and fulfilling, it doesn't doesn't do much to expand your social circle.
What about getting to know other types of people?
How awesome would it be to have the social skills of the likes of Van Wilder, Hitch or Dwight Stifler?
What about getting to know other types of people?
How awesome would it be to have the social skills of the likes of Van Wilder, Hitch or Dwight Stifler?
Life would be epic, wouldn’t it?
When you walk into a room, everyone knows who you are and is dying to talk to you.
You throw the type of parties that people love and want to attend.
You know everyone, so you get invited to major events and get a lot of extra perks.
So how do you get there? It’s actually easier than you think. But it does take one very important thing on your part. That’s getting out of your comfort zone. After all, you’re usually there and how’s that working for you?
My guess is probably not as well as you want.
Advantages of Better Social Skills
First let me go through some advantages of improving your social skills. These should get you hungrier and more motivated to become a better version of yourself.
Relationship building: Identifying with people can lead to relationships and a times amazing friendships. In life, you can’t really succeed without the help of other people. You have to have the skill of leveraging the relationships you have to get what you want. As the saying goes, no man or woman Jis an island.
So, imagine you’re friends with a club owner, bartender of door bouncer. Wouldn’t it be a breeze to get in? You would also get a lot of extra perks like VIP access and free drinks plus think about the social proof. People love getting to know people who know other people.
Amazing communication skills: You have to be able relate to different types of people especially when you want to express both your thoughts and ideas as well as get a message across. Building your influence would be a breeze. Just look at how Barack Obama is able to move entire crowd with only his words.
Good communication skills can also get you out of a dead end job or better yet get you promoted! Nowadays it’s not just about qualifications; it’s also about social skills. You have to be able to deal with people if you want to lead. Most fairly hard working but socially inept people wonder why others who are seemingly less qualified go further in their careers.
Improving your social skills (Getting Started)
Learn to talk
It’s not enough to make words come out of your mouth to form a sentence. You also have to have excellent conversational techniques, most of which have nothing to do with your actual words.
Examples of these are:
- Good body language: As they say, actions speak louder than words. If you look like you’re completely bored to death, people won’t like talking to you. It’s definitely a big turn off. So sit straight and make your body face whoever you’re talking to. It shows that you’re interested.
- Maintain eye contact: Don’t go overboard with this or you’ll look creepy. Just give enough eye contact to show that you are really engaged in the conversation and people will enjoy talking to you.
- Smile: Make it look like you can’t live without their beautiful words. Smile and nod in agreement once in a while.
- Forget about yourself: Become more interested in others. People love talking about themselves. Use this fact to your advantage! Encourage people to keep talking by asking them questions about themselves. This is the most powerful trick of most excellent conversationalists. I can guarantee you that you don’t even have to say more than 10 sentences in a 2 hour conversation and people will love you for it. Also spice it up with a few "really" and "you don’t say" hooks… trust me. Also disagree with what they say once in a while. You will gain a lot of respect that way.
Train yourself to share your thoughts
It’s good to be able to regularly share your thoughts and ideas. This shows that you are a real person and you have something valuable to give to the world. Regularly sharing your thoughts helps you make the transition from passive to active. Just make sure you’re not rude. Be respectful and don’t overdo it. People don’t like someone who talks too much either.
Update!
Get updated! What’s going on in the world right now? What’s the latest in pop culture? Find an answer to these and you will have excellent conversational topics. It’s that easy.
Get cultured
Try to get yourself interested in art, music and learning about other cultures. You can even learn a new language on top of this. You will then have a better approach to dealing with different types of people. After all, what’s acceptable in one culture might be taboo in another.
Practice Patience
You have to be patient. You can even win the hearts of the most difficult of people if you just practice patience. This is probably the hardest thing to do because some people can be excruciatingly obnoxious and make you feel like doing nothing more than punching them in the face.
Learn from the best
Learn from people you already know who are reasonably popular. You can be direct and ask them how they do it or you can just observe them for yourself. You can then adapt some of their traits with your own unique style.
You can also search the net, there are a lot of experts and books that will help you become more social. You could also continue reading Legendary Geek for more ways to make life awesome! J
Follow the people
The best place to learn how to deal with people is not on the internet but by actually dealing with people! You can go to parties, clubs, concerts, rallies. It can be anything that potentially involves directly dealing with people.
A few years back, I took a job working at a fast food place for a couple of months to help pay for a new laptop. Though I was only doing it for the money, I learnt a lot about dealing with all sorts of people. It was frustrating at times but it was an interesting experience.
Taking up an activity that forces you to socialize can be good practice. You don’t have to work at a fast food place like I did. You can also play sports which also help you develop a sense of teamwork.
Research shows that retirees who engaged in social activities were far much happier than those who just sat home and watched TV all day in their free time.
The single most important silver bullet I can give you is to become more interested in others. Turn the “me” into a “you” and more and more people will love you for it.
